Office of the Mayor

Wally Longshore, poet, writer, orator, deep thinker, activist, optimist, environmentalist and president of Mt. Rubidoux Manor's Residents Council, shines like a beacon of hope, a green beacon. Any man of 82 years who takes daily hikes on two prosthetic legs is not easily discouraged even when tackling an enormous challenge like global warming.

After a lifetime of study, Wally is convinced that seniors, the population group with the most infirmities, the least income, and the fewest years left, can lead the way to save our planet. With the theme of Seniors Giving the Gift of Green to their Grandchildren and Great Grandchildren, Wally Longshore educates and inspires people of all ages in Riverside to get busy and make a difference. He has turned Riverside's senior citizens on to the “Plant a Billion Trees!” project of the Nature Conservancy. He has brought environmental speakers to local meetings, supported the La Sierra University Service Learning Partnership and joined the Mayor's Green Committee.

He organized fundraisers and tree-planting ceremonies and established the first Greater Riverside Senior Conference on September 26, 2009, with experts on hand to explain that time is running out if we are to avoid environmental disaster.

At 90 years of age, Doris Morton is a very busy lady, making Riverside proud to have her as a resident. Ms. Morton has been delivering Meals on Wheels for over 30 years and is still zipping around Riverside with hot lunches for her regulars every other Friday. She only recently retired after 40 years serving as a Pink Lady at Riverside Community Hospital.

Her list of volunteer activities goes on and on. She has worked tirelessly for the Riverside Art Alliance, the Riverside County Law Alliance, the California Citrus State Historic Park, as a Friend of the Riverside Library, a Friend of the Mission Inn, and a Friend of the Riverside Art Museum. Ms. Morton is indeed a friend of everything good in Riverside.

Charlotte Van Etten joined the Calvary Presbyterian Church 60 years ago, first as a member, then served for years as a deacon, an elder and became a co-founder of the Mothers' Council. Her impressive list of volunteering activities includes volunteering for the Riverside County Medical Association Auxiliary, the American Red Cross, the Riverside Mental Health Association, and the PEO-a special sisterhood of volunteers who raise money to bring women from overseas for schooling to enable them to return home with funds and expertise to improve their own communities.

At 93 years of age, Ms. Van Etten has recently started writing, directing, and producing plays; she has written three so far. She's also taken up watercolors, and she's encouraging her friends to take part in her plays and to join her new exercise/walking program.

Mary Williams has volunteered for the Riverside Parks, Recreation and Community Services Department for many years and successfully recruited countless other Riverside seniors to get involved too. Her efforts at the Dales Senior Center made their fitness classes, Alive and Life Fitness, a huge success. She has encouraged and promoted Dales' lifelong learning classes, bingo games, the senior dances, the 55-and-Better excursions, and the monthly special-event luncheons where she always pitches in, promoting, setting up, welcoming, serving, and of course, cleaning up.

In spite of all that, Ms. Williams still finds time to help her church with excursions and luncheons, faithfully setting up refreshments after services and is responsible for bringing monthly communion to Mount Rubidoux Manor where she is the floor monitor, the fire marshal and emergency counselor. She also fills in at the Manor's switchboard when the office staff takes their break. Ms. Williams walks for the March of Dimes and the Diabetes Foundation and has raised more than $3,600.

M. Deane Wylie's multiple interests and lifelong contributions to Riverside mark him as a man of letters, a lover of the arts, and a history buff, but the biggest contribution he has made to the City of Riverside may be in quietly helping children. As a court-appointed special advocate (CASA), Deane Wylie has mentored children stuck in the foster care system. Besides the one-on-one time he provides to his CASA children, Mr. Wylie supports all of CASA's fundraising efforts.

Mr. Wylie is also a major factor in the successful Carolyn E. Wylie Center for Children, Youth, and Families, which helps teach children with autism and other learning challenges and their families how to cope. It is named after his wife. At the Center's biggest fundraiser, the Stroll ‘n' Roll event in Citrus Park, Mr. Wylie not only corrals donors large and small to give generously, he works the event too, taking the official photographs and serving the breakfast.

Mr. Wylie has long been a fan of the beautiful Mission Inn, first as a member of the Friends of the Mission Inn, learning its history, studying its artwork, then as an active docent leading tours, and as an editor of the docent newsletter.